Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods • Hacker News Board

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#631

Post by philwelch » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

telchar wrote: post #532

philwelch wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cattle feed isn't digestible by humans, so it doesn't matter. Replacing grass with more human-edible crops would probably introduce new problems of similar scale. You might ask, can we just process the grass into something humans can eat? Well, that's what cattle are for.

Better to leave natural habitat on that land rather than clear-cutting forest for grazing land, as happens so much these days and in the past. Better food production efficiency means less forest razed which is a significant win.

Other forms of agriculture also contribute to deforestation. There are also situations where some grasslands may be suitable for grazing but cannot be sustainably made suitable for crops, and situations where livestock can be fed with byproducts of other agriculture.

Livestock are a central part of traditional agriculture and they're more or less essential for people who want to operate small-scale sustainable farms. It's a complicated issue that too many people enter with ideological presuppositions. Which is not to say current agricultural practices are necessarily perfect.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#632

Post by asdff » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 6:54 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #37

I'll 100% be giving it a try (I'm already a long time vegetarian though). I like that it's BK doing this because BK has served a veggie burger (Morningstar Farms Patty) for around ~14 years, so they should be familiar with the demand for meatless products. I remember when they first introduced a veggie burger, I wasn't sure the demand would be there, but it seems to have worked out. So it remains to be seen if they'l…

Whitecastle has an impossible slider as well, impossible is probably pitching their meatlike substance to every national brand right now.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#633

Post by Can_Not » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 6:58 PM UTC

Already__Taken wrote: post #571

dragonwriter wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's an Impossible Burger, and left undersaid is that it's a fast-food burger. Since it's right up front in the headline that it's Burger King,I don't think the fast food part is “undersaid”. > I just don't see the point, vs a high-protein high-fat patty made of bean or soy protein isolate that tastes good in it own non-fake-fast-good-meat-burger way. If you don't see the point of fast food, you can, I hope, at lea…

Like you point out, it's maddening people are missing this all over. This isn't for vegetarians to eat something like meat again, it's for meat eaters to carry on not giving a shit about what they eat. And it can't be cheaper than a real meat burger, because consumers will kill its adoption by calling it the "cheap" product. Regardless of merit or quality.

If I have to pay $2 more for a fake burger, I'm basically never going to buy it.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#634

Post by AtlasBarfed » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

For those that think the Impossible is still not up to snuff:

Has anyone done any testing of mixing of real beef and impossible to get as close as possible to "real" perception while minimizing the amount of real?

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#635

Post by astura » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 8:22 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #449

astura wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* is the wild card character so veg*n "matches" both "vegan" and "vegetarian." It's a short-hand way to say "vegetarian and/or vegan."

It's not very obvious that it's supposed to stand for more than one letter. Is it less confusing to do this way than to say "vegetarian" since that includes vegans?

While it's true that vegans are also vegetarians going strictly by dictionary definitions, without any other qualifier the term "vegetarian" is usually is taken to mean lacto-ovo vegetarian, at least in some circles.

Whether it's confusing or not or obvious or not, it was an extremely common term in the online vegetarian community I used to participate in around 15 years ago. Not trying to make a judgement on the term, just informing.

"Hackers" have their own version - *nix.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#636

Post by ohbleek » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 2:28 AM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #546

Jedi72 wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are vego for ethical reasons then yes, every time its bad.

Every time you press the accelerator pedal on your car you are spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. Every time is bad. That does not mean that we stop driving. We drive less.

These kinds of comparisons just don’t work and they come off as being an odd sort of defensive reply. Not to mention it’s a false equivalence. In the end though it’s a personal choice that really doesn’t need to be criticized, whether it is based on preference or ethical beliefs.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#637

Post by Simon_says » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 3:59 AM UTC

sillypuddy wrote: post #588

Simon_says wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's been 18 years since you had a burger, I'm not sure you're the expert on what's closest to meat.

Why is this getting downvoted?

Vegans are an opinionated bunch.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#638

Post by patothon » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 4:13 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #583

patothon wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I eat meat and occasionally eat impossible burgers to reduce my meat consumption, and you can definitely tell. Just not as good.

Have you had the new 2.0 version? Reviews say it's much better. They're still rolling it out to retailers.

Unsure. Last time had one was a few weeks ago. So maybe?

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#639

Post by mike00632 » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

caymanjim wrote: post #407

thinkcontext wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, this could be big. The health implications could be a driver of this, consider how many people there are with high cholesterol that should be eating less beef. And then think about how many health driven alternative products there are, eg diet soda, margarine, alt-milks, etc that really can take off in the mainstream once big budget marketing gets behind it.

The cholesterol in = blood cholesterol fallacy is one of the greatest nutrition crimes in history. Low fat/high carb diets are the primary culprit, along with genetics. Replacing meat and dairy with vegetables may have environmental and ethical benefits, but it doesn't have health benefits.

You can concoct studies to show that dietary cholesterol is not correlated with serum cholesterol, but dietary cholesterol with dietary saturated fat is extremely correlated with high serum cholesterol (more so than just dietary saturated fat). Every high typical high cholesterol foods like eggs and meat are also high in saturated fat and reliably raise blood cholesterol. If you want to study elevated cholesterol in the lab you can just feed subjects eggs.

Re: Burger King is introducing a vegetarian patty from the start-up Impossible Foods

#640

Post by mike00632 » Wed, Apr 03, 2019, 7:06 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #305

benj111 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Speaking as a carnivore, I find eating human flesh morally wrong, and would be quite insulted if someone cooked my burger next to some 'man' burger. So I can understand their point of view.

Eh, even with the lengths this comment went to present a working framing I still don't accept it. Either cannibalism is so objectionable that I'd refuse to patronize a restaurant that served human flesh, or I'd probably not mind them being cooked side-by-side. That might be a bigger things for vegans, by buying even vegetarian stuff from burger king you're supporting a company that financially motivates a lot of acti…

>... by buying even vegetarian stuff from burger king you're supporting a company that financially motivates a lot of actions you find unethical...

Vegans say this all the time. You can choose to be 100% consistent with ethics but how far do you take it? Do you shut out your family and close yourself off from most of society?